Hi Ken,
Thank you for your reply on behalf of Heico. Heico is a CSIRO Fellow, and
I'm a little surprised at you jumping in.
As you know, I was the person who coined the terms 'design infrastructure'
and the idea of 'national and local design infrastructures' and discussed
them in terms of mapping of capacities, around a decade ago. It's an area
I've an interest in, and I was wondering about the scope of your data
collection. This in terms of how comprehensive it is and its relative
balance across design fields. As you know from work together, the forty or
so Art and Design fields are a small sector compared to the other 600 or
more fields of design. My concern is for a variety of reasons you would be
focusing only on the Art and Design design fields. There are good reasons to
be concerned about this issue in terms of the trajectory of design research
organisations and their shift in focus over time. Design research in its
current form first emerged in engineering fields in the 1950s and 60s.
Engineering design was the origin of the Design Research Society, the
Design Methods group in the US, the WDK group in Europe, and sundry other
design research organisations including those involved, in areas that are
now known as usability, kansei, interface design, service design and
information design. The origins of design research in technical
disciplines and the use of mathematics and science in design research was
echoed in the balance of fields of the executives of the design research
organisations. The 1980s saw increased input from architecture and planning
particularly in the use of mathematical methods of artificial intelligence,
automated design algorithms, neural networks and the like in design methods.
From the 90s, however, the institutions of design research have increased
the proportion of executive members from the arts. This is now to the point
at which e.g. the Council of the Design Research Society is dominated by
members from Art disciplines. In fact, I'm not sure that any of the current
Council of the Design Research Society has a mathematical or scientifically
technical background (please correct me any DRS Council members reading
this)
This shift is significant. In the early days (1950s to 80s), there was an
intention to make design research multidisciplinary. The engineering fields
have strongly followed this initiative to bridge the mathematical and
technical ways of thinking to the social sciences, arts, humanities and
business studies. The trend has been one of opening up and increased
multidisciplinarity in engineering-based design research (and practice). It
requires, however, that such researchers have mathematical skills and add to
them expertise in humanities, social sciences, arts and business fields.
A significant problem reduction of multidisciplinarity of design research
emerges with the shift towards the Arts and Humanities and away from
mathematics and science as seen in the governance of the Design Research
Society and other design research institutions. This is due to the
reduction or lack of use of mathematics, and abstract technical thinking.
The subsequent reduction in multidisciplinarity in design research due to
increased shift towards 'Art and Design' occurs because on one hand there
are many aspects of design research that can only be addressed through
mathematics and technical methods, and on the other hand, because the lack
of ability to understand mathematically expressed complex ideas means it
blocks communication with the engineering design research fields that use
these methods. This seems to be reasonable cause for concern in terms of
which PhD theses you are collecting.
I was a bit surprised at you’re the way you phrased your reply on Heico's
behalf. If everything were good and my concerns weren't relevant, I'd have
expected a simple explicit reply from Heico along the lines of 'No problems
Terry, we've contacted the following institutions in the following fields
and these are the criteria we are using to decide which PhDs to accept as
relevant and which not.' Instead, you responded with what seem to me to be
unspecific, defensive, handwaving pointing to a piece by you published in
an Art-based design journal that you say doesn't define the project that
is the basis of Heico's request but gives some sort of 'conception' about
it. This is puzzling. It *is* research we are talking about? A pointer to
the research contract/tender would be more appropriate and useful.
Finally, in your email (below) you state that not all aspects of engineering
are relevant to design and the phds that contain these 'non-design' aspects
of theory will be excluded from the collection in your project. Its not as
straightforward as you seem to think. PhD theses in Art and Design fields
contain issues that are exactly parallel to the engineering issues that you
propose excluding. To be equitable, you should exclude design PhDs whose
subjects focus is on issues such as olour, shape, behaviour, interactions
with users, usability, legibility, balance, communication, informatics
etc, as these and others are the conceptual and disciplinary equivalents of
the issues you wish to exclude in the engineering and technical design
fields. How many of the PhDs you have received so far fall into this
category?
Heico requested example PhDs on design. One which may not yet be on your
list is 'András Balogh (2009) Model Transformation-based Design of
Dependable Systems, Budapest: Budapest University of Technology and
Economics available
http://www.omikk.bme.hu/collections/phd/Villamosmernoki_es_Informatikai_Kar/
2010/Balogh_Andras/ertekezes.pdf '
I look forward to receiving and reading the collection of theses and links
that you propose to share in early 2014.
Best wishes ,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Honorary Fellow
IEED, Management School
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
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--
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Thursday, 19 December 2013 1:03 PM
To: PhD-Design PhD-Design
Subject: Re: Second Request -- PhD Theses in Design
Dear Terry,
Pardon the fact that I am answering rather than Heico, but as project leader
I can answer this. As you saw from the request, we cover several fields.
Heico wrote:
"Last week, I posted a request on the PhD-Design List to gather completed
and accepted PhD theses in design for the project on mapping design capacity
for the Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organization (CSIRO).
"We have received nearly two hundred emails contributing links or PDF
attachments for PhD theses in design and in such closely related fields as
design anthropology, design thinking, design policy, and so on."
We seek "PhD theses in design and in such closely related fields as design
anthropology, design thinking, design policy, and so on"
I find it off-putting when you contrast different fields of design against
"art and design" as though anyone who doesn't do what you do must be doing
"art and design." We cover several design fields, and we are soliciting
theses in different ways. I observe that you do not seem to think of design
as a potentially distinct discipline, but you only contrast "art and design"
with "engineering design, ICT design, program and policy design."
If you wish to understand the scope we intend by the word design, I invite
you to read my article "Models of Design" at URL:
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
While it's not a framing piece for this project, the figures will give you a
conception of what we intend when we use the word design.
If you subscribe to lists where this ought to circulate, we'd be delighted
to have you pass it on. Because this is a capacity mapping project, we are
sorting through some issues. We are being broader in our interpretation of
what kind of PhD thesis we seek when the degree come from a design program
with the word "design" in its title. We are narrower in theses from other,
well established disciplines. We don't want all anthropology theses — just
design anthropology theses. In the same way, a wide range of engineering PhD
projects exemplify engineering design in some respect. Despite this, we are
narrower in what we want to read. Here, we would want engineering design PhD
theses that focus on design and the design process, as contrasted with
theses that in some respect contain or exemplify design. If you've got a
collection or useful examples, please share them with Heico. Nearly 200
people have already given us a good start.
As Heico wrote, we seek "PhD theses in design and in such closely related
fields as design anthropology, design thinking, design policy, and so on."
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor |
Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia |
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462 | Home Page
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<h
ttp://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page
http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University |
Shanghai, China
Terry Love wrote:
--snip--
>Dear Heico,
>Which areas of design are you publishing your request? Engineering design,
ICT design? Program and policy design?
>Or is this limited to design fields in 'Art and Design'?
>Haven't seen the requests in lists in the other fields.
>Best wishes,
>Terry
--snip--
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